


Pressed up close to skin and bone

by Makioka



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: Canon Gay Relationship, M/M, Medical Kink, Partial Roleplay, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:43:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makioka/pseuds/Makioka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Ralph Lanyon stopped worrying and learned to love the needle.</p><p>or</p><p>Alec needs practice and Ralph helps him out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pressed up close to skin and bone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naraht](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/gifts).



Ralph has always been glad that a comfortable silence is one of the things that he and Alec are able to share without the need for continual chat. At this particular moment though, Ralph wishes Alec would talk during this thing he has never given a name. He wants to hear reassurance no matter how meaningless it may be, the constant stream of mild chatter a doctor would give as he examined a patient. It is on the tip of his tongue to ask, for if he asked then Alec would talk, short clipped little sentences that drive him back into his head instead of out, and Ralph would have _asked_. Instead the silence is bleak and heavy as Alec kneels before him, starts at his feet- methodical as always with his little steel hammer- the impact makes Ralph flinch every time- and duly taps away. This is no more than the beginning, but he can feel the familiar tremble of sensation course through him, his hot blood under cold skin, and he shivers instinctively.

 

Alec does not ask him if he is cold, nor if he wishes to be covered and those are the questions that Ralph is glad are not asked, glad that he is not offered the choice- the chance to war between shame and its attendant discretion, and between unloosing his tongue enough to confirm this charade. Alec's hand grips firm around his calf, a heavy warmth for a fleeting second before he looses it and stands before Ralph who sits on a table fingers curled firmly into the heavy wood. The tests continue, the aperitif to something more, the veil that can be drawn over what comes later, and Ralph jerks and shakes as unbidden his nerves perform to the requirement of someone else, overtaken for the moment, and he isn't aware of how tight he is holding on, until Alec's fingers gently straighten out his own.

 

"Off the table," he says, matches actions to words, and Ralph removes himself as promptly as he can, his legs numb from nothing to brace against and he stumbles for half a step before Alec is there, coolly taking his arm for a second, bracing him until he recovers, and Ralph is tempted to hold on a second longer than he needs for the sake of the prickly serge against his skin. It's hard to remember sometimes that this serves a dual purpose- that it helps Alec as well as satisfies Ralph in ways that he does not care to think about too much.

 

When he sits on the bed, Alec stands there almost primly, Ralph notes with amusement, fine hands holding a pad as though to note down symptoms that do not exist, record reactions that do not appear, and there is a nervous flicker across his face, a spasm of integrity, that chills Ralph a little as much as it sends a wash of hot blood through his veins. There is something about this that appeals to his sense of orderly precision, each thing in its place and working correctly, and something even deeper, more savage that calls for the upending of such, the violation of the ethic that keeps Alec from touching him properly. But he does as he is instructed, as he always has done. Now he turns out his arm, exposes the inner vein where darker skin is paler, and the faintest blue-green thread runs beneath the surface. The order varies from time to time of what they do, and Ralph wants the sharp sting, the cool release, the slight dizziness that comes as the needle withdraws. Alec ignores it though, follows his own plan within his head, unbalances Ralph as always, and a sudden rebellion seethes through him- he has asked and been ignored.

 

Common sense quashes it. Alec is the doctor, _medical student_ some part of his mind adds briefly, and Ralph is the patient. So he holds steady as Alec works at him with gentle remorseless fingers, works him up and takes him apart to add him to his collection, to see what makes him tick; and grits his teeth against the thoughts that come attendant to that, the splayed helplessness of a man on a hospital bed, the intimate touch against his skin and as hard as he tries not to think on it, still the images persist, and he has to grit his teeth against them, close his eyes for long seconds as Alec touches him impersonally and briefly, the delicate shiver of sensation against his skin for fleeting moments, the long and terrible build up to what must come. Ralph is still not used to this, to the weight of observation, to being the sole object of inspection. He instinctively squares his shoulders and straightens his back, doesn't allow himself to tremble, but as far as he can tell Alec ignores that, works firm fingers into the muscle of his jaw presses in for long moments and then withdraws, leaving a subtle ache behind him. Ralph cannot name half of what he does, does not understand what it means, he can only accept or withdraw, and he has never been one for easy leavetakings, quick severances, and still the fading fingerprint remains on his skin.

 

Alec is neither rough nor gentle as he finally turns Ralph’s arm to face upwards, and looks at it with the doctor's dispassionate eye, not a trace on his face of whatever he's feeling, or his opinion of what he sees. "I'm going to take blood now," he says and there is nothing in his voice that discriminates this encounter from any other that might take place in the sterile environs of a hospital. Nothing save the heavy flush that colours Ralph's face against his will, the slow thump of blood in his veins that seems abnormally loud in the silence, and he wishes he could slow his reactions down, keep the integrity of this illusion. Alec places a cool hand on his thigh and tells him not to worry, words without meaning, this has been played out more times than Ralph can count.

 

If he was asked to put into words precisely what the appeal of this is to him, he should not be able to reply, he knows this dimly, avoids thinking as much as he can in these long moments, prefers the clinical quality with which Alec treats him than any heated hand on the thigh, any seduction. He has never felt further from or closer to Alec than he does now, that dark face with its heavy brows frowning over his selection of needles, and he gives up on christening this process with a name. Alec has a willing subject and Ralph, has, he thinks with a little jab of self-disgust, undivided attention. That pinprick of dismay should chill him, but it does not, in one of the oddities of his own mind, instead it inflames him.

 

The actual press of the needle itself is anti-climatic, he is inured it seems to pain of a certain kind, he merely looks with a kind of wonderment at the way it becomes part of him, alien one second and then closer than his skin, the silvery sliver of it buried deep, and Alec mouths the customary placations, _just a little pinch_ he says, and Alec expects no less than stoicism from Ralph, he knows, and holds his back straight, feels the remorseless suction, the extraction of his blood from him. He can't help remembering in this moment, the strangely red brightness of the blood that has been spilled not just from him but others, feels himself helplessly drift away from the moment, swallowed by the glass tube that insists on its due, until he's pulled back from his reverie by the soft slap Alec gives him, sharp on the cheek, not enough to leave a mark, but enough to shatter his train of thought. "Focus please," Alec says and there is a trace amount of disapproval in his voice, enough to wither Ralph for the moment, until he realises that the blood taking is finished, that Alec is capping the bottle with a single smooth moment, and looking at him with a practiced eye. Sometimes they'll finish here, and the heat in Ralph's veins remains unsatisfied, his cock heavy and full and hoping, while Alec packs his black bag up, and tells him with his usual dryness that they're finished, and thank you for your help Mr Lanyon.

 

That last is Alec's addition, it strikes a false note for Ralph, his precise type of honesty rebelling against the little lie of the formal name, but Alec insists, and Ralph accedes to this request. After all, as he reassures himself, this is play for Alec, this is putting his skills to good use, keeping himself razor-sharp and ready for his eventual job, and Ralph is happy to help.

 

Today is not one of those days however, Alec has not finished with him, and Ralph breathes in as deeply as he can, floods his lungs with oxygen, and doesn’t flinch when Alec presses cool fingers to his wrist and counts inaudibly, taking his pulse, blood thumping under his fingers, merest barrier of skin between them, and Ralph feels feverish all of a sudden, as though he’s sweating even though his own skill is still cool. When he looks at Alec, Alec’s dark lashes are lowered as though he is concentrating too hard to meet Ralph’s gaze, the skin of his eyelids a little bruised looking as though he didn’t have enough sleep the night before, the lines of his face alien like this as he finishes taking Ralph’s pulse, notes it down with a neat jot on the pad as though to compare it with all the other times he’s taken it, a line of figures that makes little to no sense upside down.

 

When Alec looks back up, his eyes are still distant and professional, and it’s so hard to remember he’s a student, when in this light he looks so much older, a cast to his cheekbones that doesn’t quite make sense. He has a little pillbox now- his hands are still enough that it doesn’t rattle, and there is a swift pull of doubt in his face, there for a moment, as though he doesn’t know. Eventually he enlists Ralph in that decision, flicks it open with a precise little movement, and tips out a flat white tablet stamped with something Ralph can’t make out. He knows what it is though, and is paralysed for the moment. Alec profers it- the merest gesture of his hand, like an unskilled magician fumbling a sleight of hand trick, and Ralph shakes his head. He wants it too much, that lassitude, that sinking into a strange bliss, edges of thought muted and peaceful, the way Alec seems blurred and indistinct, the loss of that control.

 

But Alec had made toast this morning and buttered it for Ralph with a quick proprietary gesture, as though this was some shape of their life, at the same time as he ducks and swoops out of anything that smacks of permanency. There is a shell of Alec’s life- medical books on the desk, robe behind the door, and always silence as though a gramophone would offend his ears, that despite its simplicity, admits of no change, it doesn’t buckle or bend under scrutiny. He invites others in but not to stay, and Ralph is wary of that. He tastes the sea sometimes still on Alec’s skin, at night under cover of darkness, he’s already peeling bits of himself away, with some wistful genuine hope extended that Alec is not kind enough to smash, even though he knows better. There’s been a wind change he thinks.

 

So he shakes his head, and doesn’t offer his tongue to dissolve the tablet, gritty and foul against his roof of his mouth, the tender stretch of the back of his throat, doesn’t surrender himself to the careful mercies of Alec, that line too fragilely drawn between care and play. Alec doesn’t change his expression for a second, tucks away the box as though it never was, but with the ease of familiarity, once again pushes his thumbs against the hollows of Ralph’s face, tucks them between the sharp jut of bone and the unexpected softness of cheek, mirrors where he’d touched earlier, fingers sinking smoothly into their accustomed groove, and open wide.

 

Ralph obediently opens wide and exhales, a long ahhh, skin stretched taut and tough and unyielding, and Alec slips a thumb in just a little, presses down on his bottom lip, a tightrope walked with unerring precision, hand spread across Ralph’s face, and it feels suddenly, absurdly as though he’s a horse, teeth being checked for wholeness. His mouth waters, a consequence of the exposure to air, welling up in the groove between tongue and teeth, gathering underneath his tongue, and he can’t help swallowing spasmodically, mouth closing around Alec’s thumb for a brief second before Alec retreats. “Looks healthy,” he remarks almost absently, strokes a thumb against Ralph’s lip, the first conscious slip he’s allowed himself, and every nerve in Ralph’s body is set newly alight.

 

Alec steps back and retrieves a stethoscope that Ralph isn’t sure he wants to know the provenance of- whether it was obtained through flattery, theft or even more dubious means. The presence of it is a reminder that there are so many things Ralph doesn’t know about the young man who stands before him, already more practiced and professional than most doctors fully qualified could hope to be, the essential steel on display like this, in ways he thinks Alec might not even know, unlike the conscious if truthful charm that he affects elsewhere. There’s a capacity to him that it is hard to challenge, and Ralph knows he’s yielded not because Alec has with strength of personality forced it on him but because he’d never ask and Ralph likes to anticipate.

 

He shrugs off the thin vest that Alec has left him, exposes his chest for the coldness of the metal against it, sucks in one deep breath, a betrayal of his usual quiet, and Alec looks at him as though gauging his resistance, his strength, in a way that feels akin to how the first mate of his second vessel had surveyed him, a sort of abstract summing up of a man in regards to his ability, to the use to which he could be put, and there’s a sort of faint euphoria about it, running high through his veins, he knows this at least, knows he’s been trained when every other boy he knew was sitting their Higher School Certificate, thinking about Oxford and Cambridge, and he was flogging it up to Iceland and back. He has ceased to separate the two instances in his mind, Alec’s appraisal of his heart, no different in this moment to the scalding glance of a man used to boys running away to sea. It’s like a splash of ice cold seawater against his face, when Alec shifts the focus of the stethoscope, murmurs “breathe in and then out.”

 

He breathes in and out mechanically, feels the expansion of his ribcage as though it’s not something that he controls, listens to the sound of his own breathing, gets lost in it for a surprising amount of time, the long slow exhalations measuring out the seconds, nothing to do but wait until Alec is satisfied with the result. It’s with a sense of muted shock that he registers that Alec has stopped and is folding away the stethoscope once more. He feels hazy and dim, like he’d chosen to take the pill that Alec had offered after all, muzzy and lost as though he’s woken up from a sleep that had been too deep and for too long, clinging to consciousness, and he is filled with a gradual sense of panic that is unmatched by the lassitude of his limbs. The part of his mind that never stops recounting the events around him is dry and unemotional, this is all in his mind, his unwillingness to shake it off, slip on cheerfulness and stop this where it stands.

 

When he licks his lips they’re dry and a little bit cracked, and Alec is in front of him, professional demeanour unmoved, as he asks if Ralph wants to lie down. It’s tempting, to lie back and let himself spill out, but he bites down hard onhis tongue as though to school it from unwarranted speech, feels tension flood back into his limbs. The first time they did this, Alec had demurred and Ralph had insisted, it was, he had said, ridiculous of Alec not to take advantage of practicing on someone who wasn’t going to jerk away or complain, and he’s almost sure he’d been without intent. There had maybe been half a thought about the rough basic medical check up he’d been subject to at a moment’s notice to see if he was fit for sail, the swift brutal necessity of a doctor, and the uneasy shifting quality of his stomach, nauseous with nerves and anticipation and then the unexpected calming touch. If he looks further back, it’s deeper, older, time in the woods, but he doesn’t like to think of that. Regardless, he thinks, his motives had been good.

 

He hadn’t expected this, hadn’t expected the ease or command with which Alec had slipped into the pose, how rigid he was about about verisimilitude but at the insistence he had yielded, given ground, and become aware as though by accident, of every taut nerve, every prickling dismay and conquered fear, the addictive nature of tentative control, full knowledge of his body, and always, Alec, distant and remote and right in front of him, fingers so sure in a way that he wasn’t himself, and Ralph can believe in this touch, even if he can’t make himself believe even deep down that it’ll last beyond these fleeting seconds.

 

Alec is gauging this dissent with one tapped finger against his cheek, and when he speaks next, his voice does not command. It expects. “Off the bed Ralph,” and as though Alec is his first captain, Ralph finds that unconsciously he obeys, it cuts through the fuzziness of the haze around him. Alec touches him then, properly, tugs down the underpants, and guides him with one firm hand in the small of the back to lean against the table. That pull is enough, Ralph leans against it, watches his own hands fold into the wood, pale against the darkness. Alec’s pad is on there, covered in a doctor’s scrawl that seems to be learnt first week, as though a spider dropped in an inkpot has dragged itself across the sheet. He should feel embarrassed he supposes, but nakedness isn’t something that bothers him terribly. He isn’t expecting Alec to guide him further down, to say as remote as always. “A little further apart,” but he acquiesces, unsure what Alec is going to do, feeling absurdly as though he will be in receipt of some twisted corporal punishment.

 

He’s not prepared for Alec’s fingers to slide down the cleft of his arse though, to push forward as though they know what they’re doing. He stiffens and Alec says coldly. “This is a necessary part of the procedure Mr Lanyon,” and in that moment he’s glad of the distance implied by the name, the way it lets him look away and shut his eyes and pretend he’s somewhere else. He’s aware in some far off part of himself that Alec means this, if not as punishment, then as reminder that until they’re done, Alec is the doctor and Ralph is the patient, and he will tolerate no up-ending of that contract. He’s done this to Alec himself before, but never like this, never with the cold no-nonsense push of a finger inside, matter of fact and impersonal, making him gasp in air, and shudder if not in shame, then at least in shock. He’s harder now he thinks, than he’s ever been before, through nothing more than the air against him, and the way Alec is treating him, even closer to just right, now that he’s lost a little of that mask, let himself take something he wants even if he pretends it isn’t.

 

Usually on the odd occasion he’s tried this with a partner, it’s him pushing in, making space for himself, shaping them around him, women as well, never, he thinks, dimly, like this. He feels himself, helpless to resist, breaking open even though the actual touch is barely there, nothing he has not felt before. There is something about this, the way he can see his own knuckles turning slowly white from pressure, the nakedness, the sense that there’s nothing else in the world at this moment, that makes him slowly shudder apart at this intrusion, makes his breath come in shorter and shorter gasps as though he has to fight for each one, and it’s ridiculous because Alec is doing hardly anything, barely moving, just waiting there patiently. He leans over a little, close enough that Ralph can feel his warm breath on his bare shoulder. “We’re almost done,” he says, and incredibly a second finger slides in, and Ralph can feel the sweat break out all over him, chilling almost instantly as Alec takes him apart slowly, the edge of professionalism more potent now that he’s so close to breaking through it. It’s not painful, not exactly, it’s more a fullness, a pressure that he doesn’t associate with being bent over a table like this, and there shouldn’t be anything arousing about it, but his cock it seems disagrees entirely.

 

He doesn’t touch himself, wouldn’t do it at a doctor’s practice or in a hospital, so he doesn’t do it here, but he’s not surprised either when Alec unceremoniously reaches around him, roughness of his shirt against Ralph’s back- he shed the jacket clearly, blurring the lines between what’s allowed and what isn’t. Alec’s hands are as clever as his tongue, as Alec himself, and he holds Ralph just right, on the exact side of too much, slides his hand up and down, practiced and knowing. Ralph is torn between Alec’s fingers inside him, and the smooth glide of Alec’s hand slick with some oil on his cock, the urge to push backwards or thrust forwards, and it’s unsurprising how little it takes to bring him over the edge, emptying himself helplessly, as Alec leans his head against Ralph’s shoulder.

 

He doesn’t quite remember the next few moments, only that Alec slides out of him, guides him over to the bed, and waits for Ralph to wake back up, decently covering him with a throw for the moment. Slowly, Ralph swims back to himself, and the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is Alec’s worried face, all traces of the doctor gone, only the lover remaining, a consummate actor it seems, and a chill runs down Ralph’s back unwillingly at the thought of everything else Alec might hide inside himself, tucked away where Ralph can’t find them, all the secrets in their neat boxes piled on top of each other.

 

He’s ashamed now, as he wasn’t during the whole pretend, and Alec senses that, turns his head discreetly to the side as Ralph scrambles to cover himself more entirely with the blanket, stands himself and strips with the careless efficient movements of a man who has been surrounded by men since eight years old, and then budges Ralph over with an easy movement. His face is young again, no more than his age, as though he can assume years for the sake of a pretence, and Ralph isn’t sure precisely how to feel, settles for reaching for Alec’s shirt which is draped over the end of the bed, and folding it for something to do with his hands. It smells faintly of antiseptic, the sort of thing mothers put on small boys knees, and he turns and throws a rough arm over Alec, draws him closer and pretends that the first thing that smell reminded him of wasn’t Laurie Odell in matron’s office having his hand bound up and disinfected, little glances up, while Ralph sauntered in to visit Tarbuck who had the flu.


End file.
